Demystifying digitalisation: key technology trends reshaping container logistics over the next five years

Over the next decade, virtually every industry in the world will be digitalised as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) – that catch-all phrase for the accelerating trend of automation, cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing and cognitive computing. While the advancements of the early adopters in IT, media, financial services, even advanced manufacturing captured the headlines and our imaginations, many other industries have been quietly making their own inroads. In fact, we’re starting to hear a lot more about digitalisation in supply chain, logistics, and shipping, for example.

RIPE FOR DISRUPTION

The cargo shipping and container logistics industries are especially ripe for disruption, plagued as they are by data silos and process inefficiencies - especially in hand-offs between chain members – that have been impacting profitability and impeding the smooth flow of commerce for many years now. The disconnects have only increased as the scale, scope and complexity of world container trade has grown.

In its recent publication Container shipping: The next 50 years, McKinsey & Co forecasts that shipping in 50 years will be a “completely digitised, autonomous industry”. The risk for incumbents, it says, is that “tech giants and digital disruptors will capture most of the value from customer relationships by moving faster.” This poses an urgent existential threat to an existing ecosystem of players, many of whom - at least in our experience – are overwhelmed by the pace of change and confused by the emergence of so many modern buzzwords into a decidedly ancient industry. Many simply do not know where to begin, what questions to ask, or what digitalisation could or should mean for their business.

Our free whitepaper - Container Logistics 4.0 –Key Themes for the Next 5 Years - recently published over at Port Technology, aims to demystify what digitalisation means for the shipping and transport industries while highlighting key technology drivers stand out as strategically significant. To read more about these major themes and what they mean for your role in the container logistics supply chain, download the whitepaper today: